Commenting on the sanctions imposed by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, Anton Siluanov told the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia that Russia had taken “all necessary measures” to pay its international creditors. In response to the sweeping financial sanctions imposed on Russian banks since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin said it would pay its bondholders dollars in rubles. However, many investors would see this as a form of bankruptcy, a situation in which governments are unable to continue paying their debts. Siluanov suggested that Russia could go to court to claim that its repayment terms had been met, without specifying where such a hearing could take place. “Of course we will sue, because we have taken all the necessary measures to ensure that investors receive their payments,” he said. “We will present to the court our bills that confirm our efforts to pay both in foreign currency and in rubles. It will not be an easy process. “We have to prove our case very actively, despite all the difficulties,” he added. Subscribe to the daily Business Today email or follow the Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s said last week that it believed Russia had made debt payments for its dollar-denominated bonds when the payments expired on April 4. It was due to pay $ 649 million (49 498 million) to holders of two of its government bonds, although it was prevented from doing so by US sanctions that prevented Russia from using dollars to service its debts. Investors are not expected to be able to convert these payments into dollars equivalent to the original amounts owed by the Russian government. “We believe that sanctions against Russia are likely to increase further in the coming weeks, hampering Russia’s willingness and technical capacity to meet the terms and conditions of its obligations to foreign debt holders,” Standard & Poor’s said. Russia has a 30-day grace period for making payments. With a government debt of about $ 40 billion in foreign currency bonds, the country has so far managed to avoid defaulting. However, the sanctions imposed by the US Treasury Department are designed to force the country to choose between running out of dollar reserves or defaulting.
